Time Of Aura rewrite
by The Antisocial Bookworm
Summary: On a dark and stormy night, one man hides in a corner, still as can be, in a place no one can see. Or can they? Past, present, and future. Memories and minds, all etched into the eternity of the Aura Tree.
1. A Good Place to Start!

Four people. Children really, ran into the building. The building itself was covered from the vicious onslaught of rain the four had escaped by a bright red roof, dulled by the utter darkness of the sky as it's tears pelted down on everything. Not that he cared or anything, rain didn't really make a difference to him, but the arrival of people did.

He watched carefully as the raven-haired teen checked on a small yellow mouse Pokemon perched on his shoulder, a young blond girl was talking to her bag, but there was a presence of a Pokemon in it, so he didn't assume she was crazy just yet. A blond girl was ringing out her long hair, her soaked hat sitting on a bench the group had stopped next to. the other boy in the group, an odd one, he thought, was cleaning off his glasses, oblivious to the water that was dripping off his hair. he and the young girl shared a similar presence, they must be siblings. Not that he cared or anything.

He sat on a couch, hidden behind a potted plant and a barrier wall, not that a wall that was three feet tall helped anything, but it gave him a measure of security. He was in a corner close to the front door, but if he left now, the children might get curious and talk to him, Nurse Joy had been hard enough, asking if he wanted a room, or just general things a person traveling would normally tell anyone who asked, anyone but him.

He should just leave, make himself invisible, and leave. Or just bolt, he didn't want to use that yet. not right now, he was drained as it was, he didn't need that as well. from the deep recesses of his mind, the word flung itself into his conscious thought, stay. Very well.

His attention focused on the group of children as they approached the counter, and rang a bell for assistance. It wasn't surprising that Nurse Joy wasn't there, this Pokemon center was out of the way, in a small town, a settlement really, in the middle of nowhere. she was probably in the back, cleaning or something.

It also wasn't surprising when almost immediately after the bell was rung, the Nurse appeared, and the five people he wanted nothing to do with exchanged a few words. After what seemed like a long time, but couldn't have been more than a minute or two, the Nurse began to lead them towards the hallway that led to the sleeping accommodations for travelers. one problem, and a big one at that, the group was heading his way. at first the man sunk lower into the couch, alarm bells going off in his mind, then full panic.

Drained or not, he held out his hands. The children walked by, but they didn't notice the man, well almost. he was invisible, but the raven haired boy stopped as he walked by and shuttered. The man froze. It was the blond boy that spoke up, as the raven haired kid just stared at the couch, seemingly right through him,

"Hey, Ash, 'you okay?" the boy, Ash, looked away from the couch where he was hiding, and scratched the back of his head, "What? oh, yea, I'm fine." he gave a small laugh, a chuckle really, and the group continued walking into the back of the Pokemon center, leaving the man to his own devices. That was when he dropped his hands, becoming visible once more, he then dashed out of the Pokemon center, and bolted out into the pelting rain, it was only a few seconds before the man was soaked to the skin, but he didn't care, he just continued to run.

Had that kid sensed his presence? or had his shield faltered for a second? probably the latter, but if it was the first, then he had a new target on his hands, and by the looks of it, a tricky one, but hey it was all just a game wasn't it? As far as he knew, only one or two Aura guardians still existed, while many, many people did have the ability to learn, almost no one ever got the chance. That kid had the ability. That kid must be eliminated.

oOo

Though the rain pelted down on the closed window, the room was well lit, light from the ceiling cast small shadows on the sides of the bunk beds on each side of the room. On each of the beds, sat a backpack, on the left bottom bunk, next to his trainer's backpack, sat the yellow mouse Pokemon. on the floor, sat the yellow haired girl, and her tiny orange muskrat-like Pokemon. It was clear that the yellow mouse was watching the two play. when the blond eight year old started to chase the muskrat-chipmunk pokemon, the mouse pokemon jumped off the bed to join in.

In the process however, the pokemon knocked over his trainer's unzipped backpack; when it hit the ground, a small box fell partially out, peeking halfway out of the bag, the blue box with a small pictures on the top and sides seemed fairly out of place, not that the girl noticed it at first. "Pikachu!" the girl yelled, and the yellow pokemon, Pikachu, sweat-dropped, and scratched the back of its head as it sheepishly let out a series of sounds, "pika, pikachu..." The girl went to pick up the backpack, only for the box to fall entirely out of it.

The girl dropped the bag back onto the bed, and picked up the box. So many pictures, so many different people, she could tell some of the ones had Ash in it, albeit a younger version of the fifteen year old she had come to know. Another one, a bit older than Ash appeared in a lot of the pictures as well, a red head made an appearance in a few, along with a brown-haired-tomboyish-girl, and a blue haired girl in a pink and black dress.

A purple haired girl and green haired boy could be seen smiling at the camera in front of a huge towering mountain that looked like the hilt of a sword, and a spiky haired boy and an older man in a white lab coat stood next to Ash and two other children, they all looked about ten in that picture. another showed Ash and a young woman, maybe in her late twenties, they had the same facial build, and similar eyes, but other than that, not much similarity to the two, the woman looked young enough to be his sister, yet old enough to be his mom, the girl didn't know which, after all, she was only eight.

The door opened, and the blond looked up to see Ash walking in, he wore a pair of jeans and a plain black and gray T-shirt, his hat had probably been thrown into the wash with the rest of the clothes, towels, and fabrics (Nurse Joy was cleaning the lobby because of how slow travel was at this time of year, and everyone had offered to help) that existed in the pokemon center, and his hair, being wet, was in a rare state of non-bed-headed-ness, that the girl had to admit, looked a lot better than the bed-headed-ness state it was usually in.

"Hey Bonnie," Ash said as Pikachu jumped onto his shoulder, "whatcha got there?" he motioned to the fact that the blond, Bonnie, had hidden her hands behind her back the moment he walked through the door. Sheepishly, Bonnie took the box from behind her back, "It fell out of your backpack, pikachu knocked it over." Ash took the box from her, and she continued, "Who are all the people on that box?" Ash looked down at the box and smiled. As Bonnie threw herself back down onto the rug in the middle of the room, he sat down next to her, and together, they looked at the small blue box with pictures on it.

"last time I went home, my friend Misty," as he said the red-head's name, he pointed to her picture, "made this for me," Bonnie looked down at the picture of a ten year old Ash, the girl named Misty, and the older boy, "Who's that?" she pointed to said older boy, "Oh that's Brock, in that picture he was fifteen, and Misty and I were ten, it was right before the Indigo League in Kanto."

"Oh." Ash continued, turning the box sideways, "and that's Dawn, and me and Brock again," he pointed to the blue haired girl standing next to him and Brock, in front of a stadium-like building, "what is that building for?" Ash looked into the background of the picture, "oh that? its for contests, kinda like poke-tri-atholans, but nothing like them at the same time." Bonnie gave him a dumbfound look, as did Dedenne, Pikachu just sighed in exasperation.

in an effort to get off the subject, Ash turned the box to the other side, showing a different picture, him, Misty and Brock, but with them was a girl, slightly younger than Ash, and a boy who looked about Bonnie's age in the picture, "these two are May and Max," I think Max should be a trainer by now, and May is somewhere in Sinnoh with Dawn last I heard from her. "When was that?" Bonnie asked,

"About a month or two ago. Max has been completely off the charts, even May doesn't know where he is. and Misty and Brock are both at their families' gyms in Kanto. "

"what about these two?" Bonnie pointed to another side of the box, where the purple-haired girl and green-haired boy stood smiling in front the the sword-hilt-mountain-castle-thing, "Iris, and Cilan, that was in Unova, they're both in Johto now."

"and these people?" Bonnie pointed to the last two pictures, both slightly overlapping, "me and my mom in front of our house," he pointed to the first, taken portrait style, then the second, "you know that's professor Oak, but that's Gary, his grandson, me, Yellow, and Green, they're cousins."

"Colors?"

"It's a family thing, I think..." after that, Ash opened the box to show Bonnie all the little trinkets inside. Immediately, a small, shiny, broken object caught Bonnie's eye, it was split completely in half, and the remaining letters on this half read, "-mon" on the top, and "-est" on the bottom, it looked kind of like the decorative tops of the keys Serena competed for in poke-triathlons.

"its a contest Ribbon, when May was completing in the last contest in Kanto before she headed to Johto, she got me to participate, we tied in the final, and cut the ribbon in half, she has the other half."

"it's so pretty!" Ash smiled at the young girl's outburst, even as she quickly lost interest in it and, setting down the half-ribbon by her side, looked back into the small box, by that time, Pikachu had curled up on Ash's bed, and was sleeping peacefully, Dedenne doing the same, only inside Bonnie's bag on the top bunk on the other side of the room.

over the course of around fifteen minutes, Bonnie found out more about Ash then she ever thought she would, about May, Max and their gym leader father, and May's Blazenkin of which looked a lot like her father's, in the girl's opinion, she squealed at how "CUTE" Buneary's crush on Pikachu was, and Brock's shenanigans, and how he would be brought down by Misty, Max, and even his Croagunk later on,

"And the funniest part was, Dawn and I could never figure how he recovered from the poisoning so fast, even trying to do it again in less than fifteen minutes sometimes! The randomness of his pickup lines was amazing, he never said the same thing twice and I've known him since my first journey in Kanto!"

why…" Bonny muttered looking at a snapshot of Brock being poison jabbed by his Croagunk, she laughed a little at the nurse's complete and utter confusion, and the looks of amusement and embarrassment on Ash and Dawns faces, the Piplup and Pikachu sweat dropped. "and that happened every day?" she asked looking at the picture in confusion.

"you do something similar Bonnie," Ash laughed,

"Well for me it's different, my brother is going to need someone to help him besides me!"

"Maybe..." he was humoring her, after all, she would probably be embarrassed by her actions when she was older, but in Ash's life, experience was the best teacher. he was about to show Bonnie a glass sculpture of Pikachu when Serena came in, her dress being washed as well, she was in torn jeans and a magenta-like pink shirt, and her hat-less hair was tied messily into a high ponytail.

"Hey Bonnie, are you using my hair brush on Dedenne again?" She stopped when she saw the small box in Ash's hands, turned on just the right angle to show a smiling ten year old with the Picture with her younger brother and a younger version of Ash, "Hey, what's that?" Her question was almost absentmindedly asked, as her eyes were glued to the picture.

"As a friend of mine put it, a treasure box?" it was obvious he wasn't sure about what to call the box filled with memories of his friends, luckily for him, Bonnie yelled over him with a, "It's a souvenir box!" and his unsure response was drowned out by the eight year old's much more clever one, and he relented, "what she said."

"Who's that?" Was her next question, and she pointed to the girl, May, in the picture,

"that's May, she lives in Hoenn, but she's in Johto right now..." Serena sat down, "yea, but didn't she live in Johto at first?" Ash shrugged, he had never asked about his friends younger selves unless they started the conversation, if they shared, they shared, after all, he had a few things he didn't want people to know anyway.

"Yea, I think she was in my class one year, or it could've been a daycare, probably a daycare."

"You lived in Johto?"

"Yea, then when my parents divorced, my mom and I moved here."

Ash nodded in understanding, although he had never actually moved, his dad had left at an early age, although, he was starting to get a few suspicions on the circumstances, after all, there were no pictures of him in the house, they all disappeared when he was around four.

When the two turned their attention back to Bonnie, of whom Ash had handed the box so she could look while he talked to Serena, only to find the box neatly closed, and Bonnie nowhere to be seen.

"She probably went to go find Clement, I'm going to go ask if I can make some cookies, want to come? I can teach you a few things." Ash put his hands up in surrender, "No thanks, trust me Serena, you don't want me anywhere near a kitchen. I'm a disaster!" Serena shrugged, "Okay.."

oOo

 _The rain still pounded outside as the man ran through it, but something was off about the figure, he was enveloped in a blue glow, rain seemed to bouncing off him as he ran, though the ground was flooded and his feet made splashes in the puddles. his boots were completely dry, his coat never seemed wet in the first place, his entirety seemed aglow, as though he was from another world, it was almost impossible to believe he was human, anyone who saw him could swear that he wasn't. but no one saw him, he was alone in the forlorn woods._

 _He stopped in front of an ancient sequoia, and looked around him to make sure no one was lurking, slowly he raised his hand, still aglow like the rest of his body and clothing, he wore brown finger-less gloves, each with a small stone set into the top of them, a sphere of blue materialized on his palm._

 _Growing larger the longer he held it out, at the same time a door in the tree seemed to be opening up, slowly and steadily. the sphere grew, the door grew. A crash sounded somewhere close by, the man froze, the sphere disappearing from his palm, the door disappearing a few moments later, the glowing man darted off into the night, unaware that it had just been the wind._

A/N: So yea, I rewrote the chapter, after all, it's been three years, so before finishing it, I think I'll rewrite the story, fix up inconsistencies, clean up the plot line, and stuff, but I do have a lot of school work, I always hate it when people joke that Homeschoolers only do Homework, sometimes I'll be doing school work from 6:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and i don't go to school, I DO school... Its a fun world I live in. Kind of...

 **A/N2: and that was Aves' last update, a rewrite of the first chapter of TOA, she is having major health problems right now. It's hard on the family, and she's the second one of my cousin's to get really sick, Sid didn't make it, she got cancer, Aves, well we don't know what she has, I think the better question is what she doesn't have. I have a few things like carpel tunnel, and bad knees, but honestly, her body just hates her. She's beating herself up right now, behind in school and everything, but who could blame her. It's going to be a rough few months, so bear with us. Please. -Ems**


	2. A Better Beginning?

The sun glittered down on the puddles of water spread thickly across the ground. The path leading away from the small town, more of a village really, and away from the pokemon center was not spared from the imagery of the sky being reflected upon it. Most everyone in the pokemon center was asleep, except for two people. Nurse Joy was taking care of some small children's pokemon, they had left them with her before the rain got too heavy and they had to go home.

The second person awake in the early morning hours was Ash, he sat at a computer in the main lobby typing. He was talking to May, asking if anyone had heard anything from her brother, after all it had been around three months.

 _So any news?_

 _No, we know he's not still in Kanto though._

 _Maybe Johto?_

 _My dad's contacting the Johto branch of the league, but other than that thing comming from Kalos there's no sign of him in Kanto or Johto._

 _Is he back in Hoenn?_

 _None of the gym leaders have seen him… In any of the regions,_

 _Ash, he's just, gone._

 _He'll turn up, but I'll keep an eye out for him. How's Dawn?_

 _She's on her way to the next contest in Sinnoh, I'm in a forest somewhere in Kalos… Drew's letting me use his poketch-thing, Dawn had one, remember? it's like a small-pocket-computer. how 'bout you?_

 _In a tiny village stop close to Geosenge Town. I have to go though, I need to wake everyone up. Don't worry too much, Max will be fine._

 _Thanks, we're still looking for him. Well, see you around, after all, that package came from Kalos._

 _Good luck_

 _Thanks, bye_

 _Bye._

Ash logged off his Trainer Communications Account, and closed down the computer, it might have been around 6:00 in the morning in Kalos, but it was already midday in Hoenn, and 2:00 in the afternoon Johto and Kanto; although, it was only around 8:00 in the morning in Unova, not that he knew very many people in that region at the moment, Iris and Cilan both being in Johto.

He stood up, stirring the sleeping Pikachu in his lap, causing the pokemon to give him an annoyed look before jumping onto his shoulder.

he entered the room, Clemont sleeping on the bottom bunk on the other side of the room, Bonnie above him, and serena on the top bunk above the bed Ash had slept in. He walked over to Clemont's sleeping form and gave Pikachu a sly look. the pokemon understood and jumped off his shoulder, "hey Clemont," Ash said, almost half mindedly as he walked away from the bed Pikachu was now on top of, "you should probably wake up before-"

"Pika-Chuuuuuuuuu!" electricity didn't hit Clemont, but it flew around the sleeping fourteen year old, causing him to wake with a start, his hair standing straight up from the static electricity. laughing slightly by his friend's confusion, Ash opened the curtains, letting in sunlight that would almost be blinding to someone who just woke up, the water on the ground not helping much.

Ash could hear Serena climbing down, and Bonnie jump down, although, Bonnie's landing on Clement was fairly cringeworthy.

oOo

Small patches of light reached through the trees, hitting the path at odd angles, a river flowed somewhere through the trees, out of sight. They had been walking all morning, and it felt as though they were going in circles, "Clemont, are you sure we're not lost?"

Clement didn't answer right away, "Um." Ash groaned, he'd traveled with brock long enough to know that any 'um' meant 'no' when it came to traveling. either way, he let his question go unanswered, opting to listed to the slight wind rustle through the leaves, small bug type pokemon could be heard, hurrying to stay out of sight. the sounds of the forest were perfect to mask the footsteps following the group through the forest, except for one thing;

wavelengths. the feeling of nervousness shot itself into every fiber of Ash's mind, surrounding his being, and leaving him completely confused, "riolu?" he muttered, almost to himself. Ash hadn't realized he'd stopped walking until Serena turned and gave him a weird look, "Hey, Ash, 'you okay?" that snapped Ash out of it, "Yea, fine." Bonnie chose this moment to start pestering her older brother, "Hey Clemont, 'we there yet?"

"no."

"How 'bout now?"

*sigh "no"

"Now?"

"No!"

"Are we there, now?"

*silence

"Now?"

Clemont had begun to ignore the girl, leaving Serena to jump in before Bonnie could ask again, "How about we stop for lunch? I made cookies"

"Yay!" Bonnie was now jumping around Serena as she took the cookies out of her bag, Clemont stood next to her. The conversation between the group was lost on Ash, However, as time itself seemed to slow down.

Ash never really wanted it, but wherever he went, it always turned up, only in Unova did he not run into a situation where his Aura sensitivity was called into light. To be honest, he resented that part of him, from an early age, all that had been on his mind was pokemon, training, battling, eating, breathing, pokemon.

Then they went to that stupid castle in the stupid mountains. that was where it started, well the aura aspect of it started, although, looking back, it probably had something to do with those stupid orbs in stupid Shamouti, but hey he was the one complaining here, right?

Either way, the closest he could explain the sensation of being on the same aura channel as another living thing was having your mind being broken into for a second. having thoughts, feelings, that aren't your own flinging themselves into your head, and momentarily, it's all you can see.

It takes over your sight, hearing, and mind. Then, as quickly as it comes, it goes away, leaving you in perpetual confusion. What makes it worse, was when Ash learned from a person in Sinnoh named Riley, that you could lean to change the aura channel you operate on. He demonstrated for Brock on Ash, because the older was interested on the subject.

This time though, it was just white noise, slowly getting louder as Ash's surroundings sank into the background, it then peaked with loud sound, Ash couldn't really pinpoint what had made it, but he knew what direction it was coming from.

With a loud gasp, Ash turned towards the trees and bushes to the left of the group. there wasn't time for anyone to ask the fourteen year old what was wrong, as the moment he turned around, a pokemon burst from the bushes.

 **A/N well there's that. So I'm changing a lot about what Aves was doing, but the basic story is still there, she's going to read this and hate me, but I'm going to say it anyway; this story is killing me, I actually think I hate it. But family love and all, so I'm going to finish it. Also she bribed me. should I make her buy me pokemon Sun, or Moon? too soon?**


	3. A Horrible Meeting

Ash always found himself torn between two sides of a fight. Whether it be Mew and Mewtwo, or the crazy, power hungry teams of the regions he traveled through. Always right in the middle. And always at the detriment to his health, whether he gets turned to stone, drowned, or teleported-by-a-small-blue-legendary-pokemon-into-the-middle-of-a-team-Galactic-base, everything always goes downhill, really fast. Maybe the universe hated him, maybe it just thought,

"Another problem? Eh, just send that kid from Kanto, he'll fix it. Probably." Or maybe, if he wanted to learn to use aura, he could actually do something to stop these situations, easily. But he wasn't going to go that route any time soon, was he now?

Either way the wind blew, Ash still found himself blindsided by a small pokemon running out of the bushes, and straight for him. It stopped short, and stared up at him, big glassy blue eyes burning into his darker brown ones,

"Do I know you?" He asked, as the pokemon didn't seem very keen to move from its spot. It just stared up at him and tilted its head in confusion.

o0o

May ran through the underbrush, after her pokemon, she'd left behind the trail a while ago, Glaceon had suddenly perked up before running off into the trees. May had run after her pokemon, leaving behind Drew, and not knowing if he'd followed her or not.

It seemed petty to her, but she didn't really care if he followed her or not. In her mind, she's lost Max, and she couldn't lose Glaceon. Drew was fully capable of taking care of himself, he's even saved her a few times.

After a few minutes of recklessly tearing through the underbrush of a forest, growing denser by the minute, she stopped and looked around, _great, now I'm lost._ Where was Drew when you needed him? Some indiscernible sounds echoed off to her left, "Glaceon?"

She called nervously, continuing forward at a much more slow, and careful, gate then before. She pushed through the last of the underbrush and came to a clearing, there she found not just her missing pokemon, but a few people as well. One of which, she recognized.

o0o

Drew stood in the same place May had left him in, not really knowing what to do. He supposed that, maybe, he should follow her, you know, just so that she didn't run off the side of a cliff or something. And it wouldn't really be that hard, considering the fact that she'd left quite a trail.

Broken bracken, smashed bushes, obliterated tree branches, and crushed leaves gave him a pretty accurate idea of where the coordinator had run off to. Unfortunately, it also left him with little reason not to follow her. So, with a heavy sigh, he followed the trail of May's wreckage, something he did on a regular basis, through the trees.

He'd been walking for maybe fifteen minutes when he heard a group of voices, May's standing out among them. With a groan of exasperation, he pushed through the last of the underbrush, brushing twigs out of his hair, and leaves off his clothes as he came to stand in a clearing.

"There you are Drew!"

May was suddenly next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder, he gave her a confused look and a, "huh?"

He was ignored, "And this is Drew, he's a coordinator to!" She threw her hand to the left of him, giving Drew a start and causing him to look that direction. The confusion he was getting from his bubbly, excitable traveling partner was enough to give him whip lash. He stopped listening to the girl and finally tore his eyes away from her and to the group of people he was standing in front of.

A blond girl with an electric rodent. She had wide blue eyes that stared at the world as though its entirety was a new adventure just waiting for her to begin, the pokemon sitting on her head, mimicking her expression of youthful optimism.

A dirty-blond girl, maybe a year or two older than him, wide blue eyes with that same optimism, she was probably on her first journey. Short hair and a hat, even her dress, everything about her screamed coordinator, and he would be surprised if she wasn't.

Another blond, a boy, maybe a year older than him as well, also with those wide blue eyes. But instead of optimism, he looked smart, glasses and all, not the kind of person blind to the bad of the world, but still overly accepting of the good. But what was up with his clothing? It screamed of a gym leader. People didn't just up and go on a journey wearing that, did they?

Then there was, wait, was that,

Drew frowned, took a step forward, continuing to ignore May's words, and pointed at the fourth person, "Ash!?"

Said trainer flinched from the finger in his face, his eyes widening as he stared at it in confusion, "uh, hi?" He gave a small wave along with his words.

Drew smacked his hand to his own face, and muttered, "You would be here."

"Uh, what?" Putting his hand back down to his side, he took a step forward, "What does that even mean?"

But Drew was back in his own little world, "Every time!"

"Every time?" Serena asked, looking to her new acquaintance, May, for an explanation, the coordinator just shrugged. Finally Drew looked back at Ash, "there's no contest, so that means something is going to go wrong?"

That wasn't what the fourteen year old trainer was expecting, "What?"

"Okay where's that weird group of people, the one with the Meowth, Team Rocket,"

"I don't-"

"I know, is a legendary about to go nuts? May told me about that!"

Ash glared at May who looked at him apologetically

"I don't think-"

"Oh I know, a crime organization is about to attack us, or we just 'stumble' on them doing something illegal, she told me about that too!"

By now the blue eyed kids were staring at Ash in confusion, and Ash was glaring at a blushing May. when Drew was done with his rant, May quietly supplied, "Well we are looking for Max so… anything could happen really…"

"May!" Ash yelled.

"Sorry…."

A/N: Soooo… that was a chapter, I guess… Aves said, "HI!" Also she yelled at me for not liking her idea, so that was a thing. I really hate it when she yells at me because we communicate through emails, so it's either an email filled with words in all caps with no space bars, or a video of her yelling at me… and since she's in the hospital, she couldn't do the latter. Unless she went into the bathroom, but now I'm giving her ideas… Maybe when I said I hated the story, I was being a little harsh, I like the story and all, I just, don't like the idea of ME being the one to write it. I was perfectly happy reading the thing…. But oh well, I digress. On another topic, I feel like my writing is off, like I can't portray the tone I want, any ideas to help with that, or am I just overthinking things? Thanks for reading, and good bye now.


End file.
